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The other day I mused and posted that skeptics here exhibit little inhibition in attributing malicious character traits to people like Mills.
Truly, I consider it a puzzling phenomenon. Why such venom?

We're actually being kind of nice to him. Think about the entirely of his claims over 30 years. We don't have to attribute malicious traits to him. He says those things about himself. Now granted, he doesn't repeat all his claims in a way that would make that obvious but that only makes us think he's talking out of both sides of his mouth and makes think he's an intentional liar.

If you think of every outrageous thing this guy has claimed over the years you have to come to the conclusion that this guy is a monster willing to let people die apparently due to his own ego. Remember, he claims to be sitting on the cure for cancer. He also claims to have for at least a decade (I think it's closer to two decades) evidence of an outrageously valuable (we're talking trillions of dollars) energy source. And he doesn't show it to the world and reap a huge profit that he could use to bring his cure for cancer to the world.

The facts that lead to that conclusion come from simply taking him at his word.

Don't blame us for your stupidity in believing a guy that has been making outrageous claims he can't substantiate for 30 years now.

__________________REJ (Robert E Jones) posting anonymously under my real name for 30 years.

Make a fire for a man and you keep him warm for a day. Set him on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.

My posts here aren't meant to help Mills' work. They are here to help skeptics escape from a dark place.

That's a bald faced lie and I think you know it. If you were interested in educating anyone you would respond to the criticism offered of your "proofs" with more than a repetition of those claims. For example, you have repeatedly claimed that work by Mills has been validated by third parties. Despite multiple attempts by you and others to support this claim, we have yet to be presented with actual independent verification of any of the claims Mills has made. You hem and haw and make excuses about why you think a temperature reading by a third party who was paid by BLP and didn't examine the mechanism they were testing is somehow "independent."

It's awfully rich of you to try to take a high road about the people attributing malicious intent to Mills when you, his current supporter in this thread, engage in transparent lying about the nature of the "evidence" you offer.

Originally Posted by markie

but the future is delicious.

Pull the other one, it has bells on.

__________________Look what I found! There's this whole web site full of skeptics that spun off from the James Randy Education Foundation!

You hem and haw and make excuses about why you think a temperature reading by a third party who was paid by BLP and didn't examine the mechanism they were testing is somehow "independent."

markie is no stranger to such lies. He once pointed at a list of labs who had merely run spectographs for BLP and claimed they were independent validators of hydrinos. But they weren't. They had just run the spectrographs as they were paid to do and returned the results to BLP. It was Mills who then said "Yup, thems hydrinos alright". MIT was actually on the list. Simply an outrageous lie.

__________________REJ (Robert E Jones) posting anonymously under my real name for 30 years.

Make a fire for a man and you keep him warm for a day. Set him on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.

__________________Me: So what you're saying is that, if the load carrying ability of the lower structure is reduced to the point where it can no longer support the load above it, it will collapse without a jolt, right?

markie is no stranger to such lies. He once pointed at a list of labs who had merely run spectographs for BLP and claimed they were independent validators of hydrinos. But they weren't. They had just run the spectrographs as they were paid to do and returned the results to BLP. It was Mills who then said "Yup, thems hydrinos alright". MIT was actually on the list. Simply an outrageous lie.

Shenanigans like that help make comparisons between Hydrino believers, Creationists, and Flat Earthers so easy and natural.

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

Despite the fact they're things you actually can buy.

Dave

It's hipster woo-woo. He only wants to buy things that aren't for sale,

__________________Look what I found! There's this whole web site full of skeptics that spun off from the James Randy Education Foundation!

Skeptics on a forum like this of course have little influence on Mills' work.

Evidently even Mills has " little influence on Mills' work".

Originally Posted by markie

My posts here aren't meant to help Mills' work. They are here to help skeptics escape from a dark place.
The other day I mused and posted that skeptics here exhibit little inhibition in attributing malicious character traits to people like Mills.

Ah, so claiming Mills is being suppressed out of some fear or financial gain isn't exhibiting "little inhibition in attributing malicious character traits to people"? Heck, just asserting "skeptics here exhibit little inhibition in attributing malicious character traits to people like Mills", is simply attributing malicious character traits to people.

Originally Posted by markie

Truly, I consider it a puzzling phenomenon. Why such venom?
Well today something occurred to me. People here are primed to expect deceit. How? Deceit is the premise of James Randi himself, who specialized in finding deceit since he himself was in the magic business where deceit (of the entertaining kind) was his art.
From the relatively little I've seen of Jame Randi, he doesn't seem like a bitter fellow. His skepticism doesn't reach the emotional level, or so it seems.

So some people like Randi and others are more experienced in deceit, or more specifically misdirection, having made a living at it and hence spotting it from others. However, that has nothing to do with skepticism in and of itself. One need not be "primed to expect deceit" to find such. For example the numerous historical and contemporaneous statements made by Mills that you tried to portray as being "forward looking". The latter a deception on your part, evidently just for yourself. So even you can find Mills' deceptions while not "primed to expect deceit" nor apparently willing to admit such.

Originally Posted by markie

With skeptics here, it's different. I feel the invective. I conclude that for many people here, skepticism doesn't bring out their best. They don't wear it well. The graces of human nature flee in its presence.
Just thinking out loud. I charge 5 cents per minute. Now get off my couch.

Don't portray your feelings or "dark place" as being anything but simply yours. Your introspection needs to get back on your couch and pay/charge yourself more than just "5 cents per minute". You only get what you pay for.

With skeptics here, it's different. I feel the invective. I conclude that for many people here, skepticism doesn't bring out their best. They don't wear it well. The graces of human nature flee in its presence.

Years of constant banging-your-head-against-a brick-wall-of-denial-and-obfuscation does not bring out my best side, I must admit. Doesn't make me less of a true skeptic, though, just a slightly more irritated one, prone to unseemly and inappropriate language at times.

More tea, ******?

__________________Flat Earth Theory:
The unfortunate result of ordering pizza to satisfy munchies after smoking way too much weed to bring you down from that hectic acid trip.

markie is no stranger to such lies. He once pointed at a list of labs who had merely run spectographs for BLP and claimed they were independent validators of hydrinos. But they weren't. They had just run the spectrographs as they were paid to do and returned the results to BLP. It was Mills who then said "Yup, thems hydrinos alright". MIT was actually on the list. Simply an outrageous lie.

I never would have used the word "validator" for an external lab who did some tests for BLP. They are just doing tests with their specialized equipment and returning results. Now, a lab may, in addition, say to the press, "We've never seen a reading like that and can't understand it." Despite being a provocative result it is still not a validation.

I consider a validation to be the process of an outside party (paid or not) checking and reporting on the materials and procedures and results of experiments, such that others can be reasonably confident that those experiments are indeed what they were initially represented to be.

I consider a validation to be the process of an outside party (paid or not) checking and reporting on the materials and procedures and results of experiments, such that others can be reasonably confident that those experiments are indeed what they were initially represented to be.

By that definition a validation test of BLP hardware has never been done.

There's also the fact that the creation of hydrinos has never been independently replicated.

...and after a break markie is back on task, blaming everyone but Mills for that man's 30 years of failure. Well he's left a trail of well beaten horse for us to demonstrate his resolve. Now he's walking away with hopes to continue but with bunnies.

Markie seems to forget that the skeptics here are not in isolation. Qualified or otherwise, they are backed by a long list of scientists, including Nobel winners, who claim that this is anything from nonsense to a scam. This has even been addressed in the scientific literature by some. The fact remains that Mills has nothing replicable, and has convinced no-one of any standing in the scientific community as to the validity of his claims.

__________________“There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.” - Victor Hugo

“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” - George Carlin

I never would have used the word "validator" for an external lab who did some tests for BLP. They are just doing tests with their specialized equipment and returning results. Now, a lab may, in addition, say to the press, "We've never seen a reading like that and can't understand it." Despite being a provocative result it is still not a validation.

I consider a validation to be the process of an outside party (paid or not) checking and reporting on the materials and procedures and results of experiments, such that others can be reasonably confident that those experiments are indeed what they were initially represented to be.

Is that "outside party (paid or not)" bound by some non-disclosure agreement?

I consider a validation to be the process of an outside party (paid or not) checking and reporting on the materials and procedures and results of experiments, such that others can be reasonably confident that those experiments are indeed what they were initially represented to be.

We also agree that is a "validator" - someone who oversees BLP staff running experiments on BLP equipment. What markie has not been able to understand is that means nothing in science and not much in business.
It leaves room for outright fraud by BLP.
It leaves room for experimental errors by BLP.
It even leaves room for errors by the validators!
It does not mean that any hydrino delusions possibly appended to their reports to BLP by Mills have been validated.

That is why a key part of science is multiple independently replicated and published experiments. When you have dozens of peers reviewing many runs of an experiment then it is vastly less likely that errors will be missed. For example Mills stupidity of not knowing how to use a spectrometer for some years and so looking at noise outside its limits would be found in the first attempt to replicate his results.

[snip]
Why such venom?
Well today something occurred to me. People here are primed to expect deceit. How? Deceit is the premise of James Randi himself, who specialized in finding deceit since he himself was in the magic business where deceit (of the entertaining kind) was his art.
[snip]

I think the venom as you call it derives partly from the insistence of falsehoods as being fact - such as the independent verification of Mills work and partly because Mills is deceitful at a minimum.

By deceitful as an example Michael Suede in the opening post of the original thread represents Mills as Harvard trained.

Quote:

The "essentially free" energy generator was created by a company called Brilliant Light Power (BrLP), that was founded by Dr. Randell Mills, a Harvard trained medical doctor.

It turns out Mills attended a class at Harvard and did not receive a degree in medicine from Harvard. Not to denigrate a medical degree - it is impressive from any institution. Now the claim may be technically true in that he attended a class there but he is not a Harvard graduated medical doctor as the claim implies and it is used in a way intended to mislead or at least is likely to mislead and so is a lie. It may be that Mills did not make the claim but since it has appeared in print and in numerous places and he did not correct it appears to be intentional. Plus one has to question where the original claim came from.

Misinformation generates suspicion especially when the appearance is it is willful.

But none of this is personal, at least on my part. I am by nature not an overly trusting person. I don't believe advertising, I don't believe testimonials, I don't believe politicians. When I have a source I do trust I am still on guard.

I've mentioned earlier I for one would be delighted if any of this was true. It would revolutionize life and quality of life for just about the whole of humanity. It would fulfill the visions of life as I imagined things would be like I got from reading Science Fiction as a kid and I very much wanted life to be like that.

Incidentally my presence here has nothing to do with Randi. He was separated from the site before I found it and it was not his work that led me here.

Skeptics on a forum like this of course have little influence on Mills' work.
My posts here aren't meant to help Mills' work. They are here to help skeptics escape from a dark place.
The other day I mused and posted that skeptics here exhibit little inhibition in attributing malicious character traits to people like Mills.
Truly, I consider it a puzzling phenomenon. Why such venom?
Well today something occurred to me. People here are primed to expect deceit. How? Deceit is the premise of James Randi himself, who specialized in finding deceit since he himself was in the magic business where deceit (of the entertaining kind) was his art.
From the relatively little I've seen of Jame Randi, he doesn't seem like a bitter fellow. His skepticism doesn't reach the emotional level, or so it seems.
With skeptics here, it's different. I feel the invective. I conclude that for many people here, skepticism doesn't bring out their best. They don't wear it well. The graces of human nature flee in its presence.
Just thinking out loud. I charge 5 cents per minute. Now get off my couch.

I can't speak for others here, but I know I actually just wanted some sort of evidence this was real. I did not assume it was purposeful fraud at all. I only came to that conclusion after a few months and an overwhelming preponderance of the evidence. Now I am almost certain that Mills is a fraud in the criminal sense. That's a huge change in my position from when I first saw this thread. Again, this is not a preconceived idea, it is based on all the best evidence that has been uncovered in this thread. Far worse deceit and deception than I originally thought. Originally I thought the most likely was just honest experimental error, a smaller chance it actually was real, and the last was self deception. It wasn't until later I realized the deception was too elaborate to be self deception, but rather had to be purposeful deception. At this point I am pretty sure in the end Mills will actually serve time.

__________________Scott
"Permaculture is a philosophy of working﻿ with, rather than against nature; of protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted & thoughtless labour; & of looking at plants & animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system." Bill MollisonBiome Carbon Cycle Management

It wasn't until later I realized the deception was too elaborate to be self deception, but rather had to be purposeful deception. At this point I am pretty sure in the end Mills will actually serve time.

If Mills keeps his stock out of secondary markets, the SEC isn't going to care about his company. I presume that Mills controls the board, so he faces no threat there. Only action by an investor is going to bring down the company, and even then, I'm not sure it will result in jail time, but it could.

I was reading about Theranos, and there are quite a few parallels, except that BLP isn't public. One investor in Theranos was Carlos Slim, who had an exclusivity agreement for Mexico. Guess what -- Carlos Slim was also the last big investor in BLP, and has an exclusivity agreement for Mexico. I wonder how he feels about more money going down the drain?

I hereby acknowledge that my forecast was wrong. I was wrong. My judgement of things to come was impaired. Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

I couldn't bring myself to buy the pie, nor the ice cream. Today I fast, but the future is delicious.

Have you considered that you may have given up too soon?

The 26th had barely begun when you posted that!

From a CI:

Quote:

We began the day very early, with the rig ready by 06:00. And a high state of confidence that we would have a closed loop unit by cob.

The first couple of runs were very good, not quite there, but then we hit a series of snags. RM’s energy and enthusiasm were astonishing! And so we worked without any breaks until almost midnight ... when success!!

But while elated, we were exhausted. And as I headed home, I knew we had at least a day’s work ahead of us, thoroughly analyzing the data, double checking everything, and doing a confirmation run with the prototype, before we could write the PR.

I've been away from this thread for a while, so I don't know if this has been covered, but it's amusing. You remember that subreddit that was linked to a while back? The top thread there right now is entitled "If Markie supports Dr. Mills I’m a talking cat". The post from the OP:

Shame we don't have more people from there posting here, and it's a shame that those that do come receive a hostile welcome. The people who post over there seem to know Mills' stuff inside out, but the sub has basically no dissenting voices. Those few that come along tend to be treated the way that true believers are here and so don't stick around for long.

It seems to me that if we could get the more knowledgeable people from here and the more knowledgeable people from there having civilised discussions with each other, working on the assumption of good faith and trying to ignore the assumption that the people with opposing viewpoints are stupid/deluded/frauds/etc., then that could be a lot of fun.

At top level, there seem to be two separate parts: science and scam/fraud.

Only the first belongs in this part of the ISF (though I do not know where the second would).

At top level, science has two parts, theory and experiment.

Myself, I’d be interested to read what “the more knowledgeable people from there” could say about Mills’ theories. Either to make a case that they’re not nonsense, or that they can be re-written in a way as to make them not nonsense.

Re experiments: for myself, the only possible aspect that would be interesting is hearing about the experiences of those Redditers (?) who have, independently, attempted to replicate key parts of Mills/BLP’s claims (I may have missed something, but I don’t recall reading that any Mills/BLP fan has ever even considered doing this).

Otherwise, I don’t see the possibility of any “fun”, much less “lots”.

Re experiments: for myself, the only possible aspect that would be interesting is hearing about the experiences of those Redditers (?) who have, independently, attempted to replicate key parts of Mills/BLP’s claims (I may have missed something, but I don’t recall reading that any Mills/BLP fan has ever even considered doing this).

ISTR that some people have talked about replicating Mills' work, or attempting to. OTOH, this is only a very vague sense of mind and I happily confess that I might be getting it confused with the EM Drive. There are certainly several supporters of the EM Drive who are attempting to build their own.

At top level, there seem to be two separate parts: science and scam/fraud.

Only the first belongs in this part of the ISF (though I do not know where the second would).

At top level, science has two parts, theory and experiment.

Myself, I’d be interested to read what “the more knowledgeable people from there” could say about Mills’ theories. Either to make a case that they’re not nonsense, or that they can be re-written in a way as to make them not nonsense.

Re experiments: for myself, the only possible aspect that would be interesting is hearing about the experiences of those Redditers (?) who have, independently, attempted to replicate key parts of Mills/BLP’s claims (I may have missed something, but I don’t recall reading that any Mills/BLP fan has ever even considered doing this).

Otherwise, I don’t see the possibility of any “fun”, much less “lots”.

By a curious coincidence, I recently learned that someone who’s an ardent fan of “the Electric Universe” recently discovered Reddit. He tried his luck in several sub-Reddits (e.g. physics, space), but basically got nowhere, except in plasmacosmology (he didn’t help himself though, he largely repeated the same, widely de-bunked EU nonsense that he’s been banging on about for over a decade).

Yes, far too small a sample, but for me this is uncannily similar to Mills/BLP: a fringe, sciencey sounding idea can find a home (echo chamber) in Reddit. And within this home, fans are immune from critical thinking.

One more parallel: within the cocoon, no fan seems to have ever considered that investing their time and money to independently test, well, anything at all, could be worthwhile.

One more parallel: within the cocoon, no fan seems to have ever considered that investing their time and money to independently test, well, anything at all, could be worthwhile.

Par for the course for lots of believers. Spend hours, days, weeks, years insisting that everything everyone else believes is wrong, but don't spend even one second actually doing any of the work that could potentially prove their claims. Even if such work would be incredibly easy.

__________________Obviously, that means cats are indeed evil and that ownership or display of a feline is an overt declaration of one's affiliation with dark forces. - Cl1mh4224rd

There's a recent post (do they call them posts, over in Reddit?), by WupWup9r (not her real name, I assume), that is, I think, an excellent example of some of the things I wrote about. Here are some excepts:

"I am still looking for a critic who does not fall back on SQM. It seems to me that shutting Mills down would be done by attacking at the root of his theorizing, the non-radiation condition as applied to the GUTCP electron model." Apart from the obvious fact that WupWup9r seems to not done much real research on this (such as not noticing that there are dozens of posts here in ISF on exactly this topic), it's exceedingly puzzling (to me anyway) why she thinks that "the non-radiation condition as applied to the GUTCP electron model" is "the root of [Mills'] theorizing".

"Yet, Professor Randy Booker provides a line-by-line support of the derivations in GUTCP, and he is not alone." Weird. After several years, and many a post by ardent (or not) Mills' fans, I recall no mention of any "Professor Randy Booker", and certainly not her "line-by-line support of the derivations in GUTCP". Asleep at the wheel, markie? optiongeek?

"It certainly doesn't help that I'm not a physicist, so it is not hard to lose me in theoretical arguments. I'm an EE, so I do follow the ideas and a lot of the math, but this can be tough, and I do not trust my conclusions so strongly." This is unusual, though not unique ... an ardent fan admitting to lack of ability to actually understand the core of (theoretical science). The obvious corollary: if you're so keen on Mills' ideas, WupWup9r, why haven't you invested the necessary time and effort to learn the relevant physics?

"I wish I could replicate Mills' claims, but he is understandably restricting who is allowed to do the work to those who have acceptable institutional affiliations. My hobby lab doesn't count." I'm at a loss for words. How can Mills restrict (basic) scientific research?!?

"Mills offered himself in public forum for those like CSurveyGuy for many years" Now it's my turn to be asleep at the wheel (or not): this is the first I've heard of anything like this. Did a Mills fan post about this, in this or any of the predecessor threads (but I missed it)? Or is it also news to markie, optiongeek, et al.?

To conclude, some words from an "optiongeek": "I'm completely comfortable, even eager, to have informed discussion with anti-GUTCP folks." Wow. I mean, just wow (assuming that optiongeek is the same who's posted here in ISF).

ETA: I missed this, by WupWup9r: "Somebody should suggest to HappySkeptic99 that he take Mills up on his offer to do an independent replication, or would his institutional affiliation that consists of his armchair, prove insufficient?" Huh?

ETA: I missed this, by WupWup9r: "Somebody should suggest to HappySkeptic99 that he take Mills up on his offer to do an independent replication, or would his institutional affiliation that consists of his armchair, prove insufficient?" Huh?

I don't know anything about this. I do not have a lab, as I have been out of the field for quite a while. If I did, I wouldn't be spending institutional money. There are no papers that I have seen that actually show evidence of anything worth replicating.

However, I have seen other papers worth replicating, and they all have a few things in common:

1) They make the experimental setup clear.
2) The setup is well designed to remove other error sources.
3) The results are exciting, by clearly confirming or falsifying existing theory.
4) It appears that anyone should be able to reproduce the results.

People with laboratories can often replicate results in days or weeks (I have been contacted by teams that have replicated and built on my papers). Being the first to replicate an exciting discovery is something that teams fight for.

Par for the course for lots of believers. Spend hours, days, weeks, years insisting that everything everyone else believes is wrong, but don't spend even one second actually doing any of the work that could potentially prove their claims. Even if such work would be incredibly easy.

I suspect, that anyone in the position to actually test Mills claims would not be a believer in those claims.

I've noticed a trend with 'skeptics' here, a behaviour that exhibits low inhibition in ascribing the foulest of motives to those who challenge the status quo. Venom is directed towards the individuals, the mavericks, who buck the system. It's like skeptics don't want to believe the story from the maverick point of view ; they prefer the safety of the incumbent, institutional view, despite evidence. Yes, despite evidence. The evidence is simply not believed, is dismissed and mindlessly swatted at as one would a persistent fly at a picnic.

It's a choice, really, to besmirch people that you don't even know, based on second or third ......

Par for the course for lots of believers. Spend hours, days, weeks, years insisting that everything everyone else believes is wrong, but don't spend even one second actually doing any of the work that could potentially prove their claims. Even if such work would be incredibly easy.

This same type dysfunctional thinking is rife in the archaeological fringe also. They spend 99% of their time screaming against the orthodox position but steadfastly refuse to spend money to hire archaeologists (or other trained professionals) and sent them to X place and do excavation Y or that said 2nd or 3rd class academic ivory tower can be brought to sponsor them by a liberal donation of cash. It is better to yell and deny more instead of actually trying to find something support their own ideas or undercut the orthodox position.

"Yet, Professor Randy Booker provides a line-by-line support of the derivations in GUTCP, and he is not alone." Weird. After several years, and many a post by ardent (or not) Mills' fans, I recall no mention of any "Professor Randy Booker", and certainly not her "line-by-line support of the derivations in GUTCP". Asleep at the wheel, markie? optiongeek?

IIRC, this was on Mills' own forum (or Yahoo group, or whatever it was. I mentioned it briefly in this thread's predecessor when Mills shut it down). I've not seen the actual post in question myself.

Quote:

"Mills offered himself in public forum for those like CSurveyGuy for many years" Now it's my turn to be asleep at the wheel (or not): this is the first I've heard of anything like this. Did a Mills fan post about this, in this or any of the predecessor threads (but I missed it)? Or is it also news to markie, optiongeek, et al.?

That would be the same forum as above. It wasn't widely publicised, as far as I know, and I only heard of it once Mills had shut it down.

I've noticed a trend with 'skeptics' here, a behaviour that exhibits low inhibition in ascribing the foulest of motives to those who challenge the status quo.
<snippage of ranting conspiracy nonsense>

Wakefield didn't criticise the safety of MMR until after he'd patented an individual measles vaccine.
Then he engaged in his well documented illegal, immoral and unethical programme of "tests".

Children have died because of this person's disgusting greed, in conjunction with the Dunning-Kruger stupidity of those who promulgate his rubbish.

__________________As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves.

"Yet, Professor Randy Booker provides a line-by-line support of the derivations in GUTCP, and he is not alone." Weird. After several years, and many a post by ardent (or not) Mills' fans, I recall no mention of any "Professor Randy Booker", and certainly not her "line-by-line support of the derivations in GUTCP". Asleep at the wheel, markie? optiongeek?

IIRC, this was on Mills' own forum (or Yahoo group, or whatever it was. I mentioned it briefly in this thread's predecessor when Mills shut it down). I've not seen the actual post in question myself.

I signed up to Reddit, and wrote two posts in the thread you quoted earlier.

The first is very short: "Do you have a link to Booker's line-by-line support?" optiongeek replied, with a link to a zip file (folder?) on brilliantlightpower (.com). Here's an excerpt of my reply:

"For others who've not seen this before, it [the zip file] is (in one part anyway) 16 separate PDFs, the filenames of 13 of which begin with "Booker-MillsBook-Chapter", and three with "Nansteel-Chapter". All but one have dates "8/12/2018" (I can't tell if this is August or December), and the other "22/01/2019"."

In case it disappears, I have downloaded it.

Quote:

Quote:

"Mills offered himself in public forum for those like CSurveyGuy for many years" Now it's my turn to be asleep at the wheel (or not): this is the first I've heard of anything like this. Did a Mills fan post about this, in this or any of the predecessor threads (but I missed it)? Or is it also news to markie, optiongeek, et al.?

That would be the same forum as above. It wasn't widely publicised, as far as I know, and I only heard of it once Mills had shut it down.

IIRC the whole thing was deleted, with no archive left.

Thanks.

I intend to ask about this, later.

FWIW, my second question was also rather short (HappySkeptic99, take note): "Why does independent replication have to be done by someone with an institutional affiliation? Aren't Mills' papers open for anyone to read? How could he (or anyone) stop anyone from attempting to replicate what he (and colleagues) have published in those papers?" WupWup9r replied, at great length. That reply is well worth reading.

That is why skeptic ask for TRULY independent experiment. All that crap above ? Usefull only to get marks. But useless for science and verification.

Yes, and that is why I asked immediately in my initial posts what the skeptics' definition of "truly independent" is. I think one person answered that question thoughtfully (and I generally agreed with their assessment). But most people were vague--or outright hostile--when confronted with the idea that there is no textbook definition of independent validation in this case.

But again, even if we could all agree on what independent means in this context, I'd argue that Mills doesn't--and shouldn't--see that as being of high importance. Seriously, why would he care? He's contracted an engineering company to bring the SunCell to market and he's apparently got plenty of funding. Practically, convincing skeptics at this point is of virtually no value to the ultimate goal, which is creating a working device.

Even though I believe the people involved in creating and funding the SunCell are above board, I completely agree with skeptics that if the device doesn't materialize *soon* (like, by the end of 2017), BLP is essentially a lost cause.

All of ProgRokker's 107 posts at ISF have been in the predecessors of this thread. He had been a reliable defender of BLP, but was enough of a skeptic to identify a lost cause. He hasn't posted since 23 June 2017.

The first of the "Professor Randy Booker [...] line-by-line support of the derivations in GUTCP" PDFs is "Chapter 1". )

That suggests a bit of stupidity from Professor Randy Booker because Mills math skills are not the real issue. We have no evidence that Mills cannot do basic math. It is the ignorance, delusions and lies in his GUTCP book that is the real issue.

Professor Randy Booker should know not to waste his time with Mills' crank theory. Booker's field of expertise is the rotational spectra of molecules. He knows about spectra in general and the fact that no one has even observed any spectra from Mills' hydrino delusion.

Professor Randy Booker is one of the validators for BLP and did a 2016 report on a calorimeter experiment. That is dubious because he is not a calorimeter expert.

That would be the same forum as above. It wasn't widely publicised, as far as I know, and I only heard of it once Mills had shut it down.

IIRC the whole thing was deleted, with no archive left.

Thanks.

I intend to ask about this, later.

<snip>

I did, and got two replies. The first contains what seems to be good info:

"That was a yahoo group called "Society for Classical Physics". It was apparently owned by Mills and he has taken it down. I don't think the above description of "CSurveyGuy declined to enter into public debate" is accurate. To me it looked like CSurveyGuy was unwilling to join SCP to have such a debate. He certainly entered into discussions about Mills' theory but not directly with Mills in his SCP group. Earlier there was a group called "Hydrino Study Group" that was not owned by Mills in which he (Mills) did debate with skeptics. The debates there got a bit raucous and personal and Mills retreated, for whatever reason, to his SCP group."

FWIW, I've also posted in the Reddit BLP "Dark Matter Heats Up" discussion. Early days, but it seems that few, if any, posters there know much about dark matter (from an astronomy/astrophysics/cosmology perspective).

As others have well noted, if hydrinos existed as Mills claims then they would be produced in many natural processes so could detected via those processes.

Also to validate hydrinos does not require anyone to duplicate Mills work. They would only need to do that if they wanted to build a heat generator no one claims that a heater is the only way to validate hydrinos.

I just checked in on the Reddit thread. I find it hilarious that one guy describes getting a cease and desist from BLP when he tried to replicate some of the Mills research and then goes on to claim that Mills encourages independent verification.

__________________Look what I found! There's this whole web site full of skeptics that spun off from the James Randy Education Foundation!

Par for the course for lots of believers. Spend hours, days, weeks, years insisting that everything everyone else believes is wrong, but don't spend even one second actually doing any of the work that could potentially prove their claims. Even if such work would be incredibly easy.

Originally Posted by halleyscomet

I just checked in on the Reddit thread. I find it hilarious that one guy describes getting a cease and desist from BLP when he tried to replicate some of the Mills research and then goes on to claim that Mills encourages independent verification.

I think it's important to read what WupWup9r actually wrote (it's quite long; I've included only the parts I think are directly relevant):

"My sister is a retired US patent attorney, and she warned me that unauthorized use of intellectual property, even for education or hobbyist purposes, could be prosecuted in civil court. I ignored her, wishing to believe that Mills would want to see hobbyists confirm the anomalous heat that Mills claimed, so as to enjoy a groundswell of public support.

Instead, I received an order to cease and desist for my efforts. I complied immediately. I had built a 3D printed reactor/calorimeter, and was reporting results. I received the C&D soon after reporting the melting of titanium powder in a water slurry, subjected to sudden capacitive discharge at the lowest voltage I could arrange. Calorimetry was not attempted yet.

After reminding myself that this was not a hollow threat, I looked at it from Mills' perspective. He is primarily a scientist, but the only path he has to overcome the total rejection he is facing from the scientific community for his theoretical and empirical claims is commercial success. So, he must exploit patent law for any business advantage, particularly because institutional science refuses to engage properly. The fewer people who develop devices that may be causing hydrino forming reactions, the better. It is hard to say who might get lucky before Mills can succeed by his methods.

I must agree that this is, unfortunately, a form of suppression of replication of claims, and I stated as much to Mills, hoping for a reversal of his decision."

And from a later post by the same WupWup9r:

"Your blanket statement that Mills suppresses attempts to independently verify his claims could be misleading. He encourages them. I was contacted by an Italian chemist who hoped to find a way to gain involvement with Mills. I suggested that he do a replication, because of his education. He then told me that he had already contacted Mills and Mills suggested a replication. But, his specialty was in computational chemistry. He had no lab."

Once again I'd like to thank SB for the suggestion about a civil discussion. My experience, so far, is that it's pretty one-sided: I post in the BLP sub-Reddit, but no one there posts here (optiongeek aside; she obviously knows I am an ISF member who has actively participated in this thread and its predecessors).

[...]Mills’ plasma lamp burned. “I very well remember the sunburn I had the next day,” says Thomas Wrubel who was involved in the experiment. The BlackLight Power reaction produces intense ultraviolet light. “Such an extreme ultraviolet emission is not expected,” Gerrit Kroesen from the Technical University of Eindhoven comments who is currently engaged in studying the BlackLight Process himself. “You have to make very difficult mental bends to explain it.”

That was 10 years ago. I don't see any reference to UV being generated these days and, indeed, there have been plenty of YouTube videos showing people observing reactions, seemingly without any protection from the UV.

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